>Is there any major geopolitical development that is generally assumed to be inevitable, and how might modern technology upset the assumptions of the powers-tha

>Is there any major geopolitical development that is generally assumed to be inevitable, and how might modern technology upset the assumptions of the powers-that-be in their planned response to that event? PRC reclaiming Taiwan. Probably biggest friction point for hot war between great powers in 5-30 year time scale. Technologic assumptions is ability to complete / disrupt kill chains of modern anti ship missiles and implications on expensive naval assets to maintain hegemony. My long term assumption is that cost benefit analysis will favour missiles. Interception typically requires multiple equally expensive interception vehicles + limited magazine depth means navies outside of friendly A2AD will be difficult to sustain long term. Right now it's a battle between unverified Chinese ability to complete kill chain which requires a host of external inputs versus US ability to shoot down increasingly sophisticated missiles. I think technology is going to make kill chain increasingly irrelevant, cheap disposable UAVs + machine learning means eventually there's going to be cheap monitoring systems and shortened local kill chain - no need to use satellite or other sensors to track target if processing shifts onboard. I remember someone speculating about kamikaze commercial drones that target airplane intakes autonomously with sufficient training dataset. My personal assumption is past the missile/interception conundrum is a world where naval force projection is supplanted by system of global UAV networks and mutual air superiority - it's easier to shoot down manned vehicles than unmanned because unmanned doesn't have to limit maneuverability to keep meat bag alive. Basically a status quo where defense becomes impossible. I'm imagining a conventional UAV first strike that wipes out an adversaries ability to make war, but in context of mutual air superiority between large power blocks, this works out to conventional MAD where starting war means immediately losing capability to sustain a war. Flournoy said she wanted Pentagon to develop capability to sink entire Chinese Navy in 72 hours. Imagine that but for assets and industrial base, in a world of UAVs, where more money goes into acquisition costs, I can imagine smaller countries being able to build sufficient arsenal to upset balance and unseat hegemons.